


Like a Shooting Star

by Bethesda



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Death, Didn't Know They Were Dating, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Ineffable Idiots (Good Omens), Inspired by Music, Love, Love/Hate, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Minor Character Death, Music, One Shot, Please Don't Hate Me, The Ineffable Plan (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-06-03 01:32:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19453609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bethesda/pseuds/Bethesda
Summary: Crowley is not taking well the death of Freddie Mercury, so he kidnaps Aziraphale for a tour.





	Like a Shooting Star

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone. As always, please have mercy for English is not my first language. I hope not to offend anyone with this kind of topic.  
> Let me know if you liked it or not <3  
> Read well,
> 
> Beth
> 
> Also, once again, I must say thank you to Papysanzo89 for helping me with some decisions and for her editing <3

That night, November 1991, Crowley was not alone.

Actually, he was at first.

When it happened he was at home, tuned on ITV. The urge to drive grabbed him by the stomach and he was out of the flat.

Once he had arrived at Aziraphale’s bookshop he honked a few times. He knew that the other one was not fond of sleeping and that he wouldn’t have woken him up, but he would have done it anyway.

He saw his friend’s head peep out of a window of the apartment and it wasn’t hard to feel how perplexed he was.

No more than one minute later, he was next to him, on the passenger seat of the Bentley.

«Did anything happened? Is the anti—»

«No, nothing like that».

It has been a while since their last meeting, maybe three years. Aziraphale looked really distressed by his appearance but it was pretty clear that Crawley was physically fine.

«Then what?»

«Do you mind if I drive?»

The angel stayed in silence and he took it as a sign. He put the foot on the gas and they were off.

\-------

There was just silence for what appeared to be like an hour and it was definitely so out of character for both of them that Aziraphale was seriously starting to get worried.

They left London behind and somehow ended in the country side, not so far away from the city that you couldn’t see its lights but enough that the road in front of them was pitch black.

There was no music on the radio, and it looked so strange for him not to hear it. Crowley loved music.

He drove on the top of a hill and then stopped.

They could see London glowing not so far away and the countryside was jewelled by little lights of solitary houses.

It was quite a nice view, Aziraphale said, trying to break the ice.

Crowley stayed still, his eyes on the city, the hands still over the wheel.

«Do you ever think that some human doesn’t deserve to suffer?»

The angel was taken by surprise. The last thing that he was expecting was a discussion about what humans deserved or not.

«Well, they are born in Sin. They decided for they own suffering sixthousands years ago, and you know it well. But still, yes, I think that some of them suffer a bit too much here. But sometimes this suffering is well repaid».

Crowley grunted and let go the steering wheel, sliding on his seat, his head on the head stall, the gaze still far away.

«But some of them suffer for nothing. Maybe they sin because of their origin, because of what they are born».

The angel turned head and torso towards him.

He was looking at the demon with puppy eyes and he was sure that the other one could feel them. It was never good when they had to talk about the philosophy behind being damned or not. In the occasions when it had already happened it went in different ways solely based on the presence of alcohol.

Either way, they were too drunk to babble about it with mindfulness or too sober not to argue with passionate anger.

«You know that it’s not that easy. There are both rich saints and poor saints, also it’s not like every single sinful act is going to send them to hell. Nor every good action into the Eden garden. It’s about what they put on the scale at the end of the journey».

Crowley took off his glasses, pinching his nose bridge and closing his eyes for a moment.

«My dear, please», continued Aziraphale, and putting his heavenly cured hand on the other one tight. «Tell me what happened».

Crowley looked at him for just a second and then at the radio of the Bentley, which switched on and started to transmit something that seemed like the news.

They listened in silence as the speaker rattled off how many people were now in Kensington to pay their respect to Queen’s frontman.

Aziraphale stayed silent, trying to understand.

At first he thought that Crowley had made a mistake and that the real news was yet to come, but then he remembered about that time when he had taken him to a concert, not so many years before, just to show him what music had become.

That Freddie had really the voice of an angel, he had had to admit, and his music too was enjoyable, but Aziraphale was too linked to other Eras and he had never spent too much time really listening to him.

Also, during the concert he had been too distracted by an hyped demon, who couldn’t stop singing like his life depended on it.

And then he heard the reason of his departure.

«Oh. Poor thing».

«Yes».

Crowley hit the wheel with the palms of both his hands and with it he honked the horn of his car, that sounded almost like a cry in the night.

«Dear, did you created—»

«Of course not!», he blurted.

«Then why are you so angry? It’s not your fault!»

Crowley finally looked at the angel, letting him see his eyes full of grief.

How could he not understand?

Even after all those years spent on Earth, the angel sometimes was too dumb to empathize with him.

Sometimes he looked at humans with scientific curiosity rather than admiration, like if they were just like animals at the zoo.

And Crowley somehow knew that they were nothing but that, but during those millennia spent with them he had started to appreciate some aspects of them. Like their ability to transform their grief in art, and especially in music.

Aziraphale too loved this thing for it was the engine that was at the base of all his books, and Crowley knew that the angel too had had his moments of despair when that Wilde writer died years before.

But now he was angry and needed someone to blame for what had just happened and for what he was feeling.

«Of course it’s not my fault. I’m not the one whom created that fucking illness!»

Aziraphale sketched away his hand.

«You know that life works this way. God herself works this way. It’s—»

«Don’t you dare».

 _«Ineffable_ ».

Crowley cried out loud and hit the steering wheel again, again and again.

Aziraphale remembered seeing his friend so distressed in just two other occasions: when he had discovered about the Spanish inquisition and the last time they met right before the beginning of the fourteen century.

He let him vent.

«Does she find it funny? Is it _hilarious_ for her Highness to destroy her own creation like this? If there are demons and there is already Hell, what’s the point of torturing someone here? That’s sick. That’s fucking sick. And all of that for what? Because they wanted to know more? Oh, well done. Ehi, listen God», he started screaming on the top of his lungs, watching at the ceiling of the car, changing the tone of his voice. «I would like to ask a few things, like, why did you put me here? Do I have a purpose? Do you even bloody exist? And of course she would answer back, but not with a sympathetic pat on the back, but drowning everyone – even kids – or, ehi, why not _cancer_? Or a terrible disease that stick you to your bed? Thank, next time maybe a box of chocolate and a polite message would be just _fine_ ».

It was not the first time that they had discussed it, but when it happened the first time the wound was just so fresh that Crowley’s anger was somehow justified. But after all those centuries, seeing him still so bitter was painful to watch.

And he understood that his friend was never going to forgive God for her choice, even if behind the punishment there as something so big that it wasn’t possible to see. Yet.

Crowley dared to look at the angel just after a few moments of calmness.

He was waiting for his answer, ready to battle, even just with words. But then he saw his eyes, full of pity and pain and he felt a bit ashamed.

«Crowley», he started, approaching a little bit more to him, «I know you are angry. I don’t understand the real reason that took us here _today_ , apart from the fact that that human departed from this world. And maybe you are not going to tell me, and it’s fine, you don’t need to, but I want you to understand something that I am sure you already know, and you’ve known it since the beginning of time. Life is life. You are right, God sometimes had used her power to punish someone here and there, but it was at the beginning. Maybe she was angry - even though I don’t think she would be capable of such a terrible feeling -, maybe she had her reasons and I’m just a dumb angel and you are a blind demon and we can’t see them. But every little ring of this enormous chain is here for a reason and, apart from our silly miracles or demonic act, every single thing that happens is either random or linked to someone’s choice. And that’s because of that little act of treason of yours. And yes, I should blame you and your lot for this, because I’m an angel and spending the eternity in the garden of Eden next to God is the most sublime thing that I can imagine, but thinking it from the human prospective…it was worth it. There is pain, there is blood and sweat, and it’s so horrible, and unfair and impossible to predict. But they have a choice. They have love. They have art and with those kind of weapons they can defeat every negative aspect of the gift of God».

And that, Crowley thought, was the reason why he loved him so much.

Because even in front of such an act of blasphemy, he was able to forgive, even though he didn’t want to be forgiven. Because he was able to understand him and calm him, somehow.

And he was right.

It was no one fault.

Nor Freddie’s one.

Because it was a matter of choice and freedom, and he had had it all in his own hands.

Even when they met the first and last time, he was a man who knew what he wanted but wanted it in his own way. Crowley’s offers were never been nothing for him, even though he was so young that his future was still uncertain. But it was going to be luminous, definitely. Short, damn too short because of a curse, but bright like a shooting star.

He had followed him during those last twenty years, at first for working reasons but then for his music. And somehow he had felt happy for him to be neither from the devils’ side nor the angels’ one. He was just human, a perfect example of their complexity.

But it was so unfair.

Of course there were so many inequities in life, and humanity was still experimenting them day by day, but somehow that one burned his soul like Holy Water.

He sighed, feeling a bit empty and mushy on the seat.

Aziraphale was still looking at him with apprehension, getting ready for another round of screaming and shouting.

«I’m sorry».

The angel stopped breathing for a second – definitely not necessary, since the act itself was totally useless -, but then shrugged his shoulders and smiled.

«You don’t have to be».

«Well, yes. I kidnapped you in the middle of the night to spend it to shout at you in the middle of the countryside, on the top of a hill, for something that you haven’t done. I feel almost dumb».

«Like a dumb angel?»

«Not that dumb», he joked, answering to that soft smile.

Aziraphale cut away their distance, looking for the hand closest to him and took it. Crowley felt his stomach turning upside down but stayed cool.

«That’s what friends are for», the angel whispered, _evil creature_.

And saying that he leaned on his seat, finally comfortable, while Crowley definitely wasn’t going to leave his hand. He dared to caress it with his thumb.

And silence fall between them, but there was still the radio to keep them company for the whole night, just one man’s voice over the others, singing at the top of his lungs, letting the two of them imagine the stars that he, and he only, was going to reach.


End file.
